S.F. to honor - and court - Ellison's team

America's Cup

Visible signs of dilapidation are seen on Pier 17 on Tuesday Feb. 16, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif. This is one pier that may have to be renovated if America's Cup comes to San Francisco.

Visible signs of dilapidation are seen on Pier 17 on Tuesday Feb. 16, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif. This is one pier that may have to be renovated if America's Cup comes to San Francisco.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

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Visible signs of dilapidation are seen on Pier 17 on Tuesday Feb. 16, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif. This is one pier that may have to be renovated if America's Cup comes to San Francisco.

Visible signs of dilapidation are seen on Pier 17 on Tuesday Feb. 16, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif. This is one pier that may have to be renovated if America's Cup comes to San Francisco.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

S.F. to honor - and court - Ellison's team

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San Francisco plans to throw a jubilant public celebration Saturday to honor software billionaire Larry Ellison and his team that won the America's Cup yacht race in Valencia, Spain, on Sunday.

The celebration will be the first step in the city's plan to lure the America's Cup challenge races and finals to San Francisco in the next two to four years.

If Ellison agrees, the race could be held inside San Francisco Bay, so the public could get a close-up view of the biggest yachting race in the world.

"It won't be like the race in Valencia where the closest anyone could get was 4 miles away," said Ron Young, who was involved in two previous America's Cup challenges.

If the America's Cup races were held in the bay, the boats could get as close as 50 feet to shore, Young said. The boats and their crews would be based along the San Francisco waterfront or at Treasure Island, said Tony Winnicker, spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom.

"We are enthusiastic about the opportunity for hosting the America's Cup," Winnicker said. "We can't imagine a better place for it."

Worldwide attention

Holding the America's Cup races in San Francisco would be both a challenge and a golden opportunity. The America's Cup, which dates back to the first race in 1851, is the oldest trophy in sports and attracts international attention.

"It's pretty exciting," said Brad Paul, a former San Francisco deputy mayor who follows sailing closely. "It's like getting the Olympics."

Hosting the America's Cup can also have a huge economic impact from visiting sailors and sailing fans as well as from yachting syndicates which pour millions of dollars into their racing boats and crews. Ellison, the founder of Oracle, reportedly spent over $400 million on USA-17, the boat that won Sunday, and its crew.

The catch is that the host city has to come up with facilities for the racing yachts and their crews. San Francisco has several unused piers with large, mostly empty sheds along the waterfront. One of them is Pier 17, on the northern waterfront, which was headquarters for a San Francisco-based boat that entered a challenge race - much like a football playoff - in San Diego 10 years ago. Young was vice chairman of that effort. He was also chairman of an unsuccessful challenge in 1987.

"Those old piers have deep water alongside. It is a perfect maritime use for them," Young said.

Pier repair ahead

However, several of the piers and their sheds need major repairs. It is not clear who would pay for the work. Winnicker said Newsom plans to sit down soon with Ellison and representatives from Golden Gate to see what is required.

Young said San Francisco has mounted at least six challenges to the America's Cup, including one challenge from the Belvedere-based San Francisco Yacht Club, but until Ellison's victory, local teams had never won.

Ellison's BMW Oracle syndicate was sponsored by the Golden Gate Yacht Club, a low-profile club with only 250 members and a modest clubhouse on the San Francisco Marina.

Under the rules that govern the race, drawn up in 1852 by the New York Yacht Club, the holder of the cup picks the venue for the cup's defense. For his part, Ellison has said he might hold cup races in Valencia, or perhaps Auckland, New Zealand, or Newport, R.I., a historic center for yacht racing.

He was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

The race began in 1851 when the yacht America challenged British yachts to races around the Isle of Wight in England. American boats held the cup for more than a century, but foreign yachts have held it for 15 years.

Ellison's USA-17 is a boat unlike any other. It has a fixed-wing sail longer than the wing of a Boeing 747, and its mast is 223 feet - so tall that the boat could not pass under the Golden Gate Bridge at high tide.

Young said the next America's Cup challenge will be different from the one held in Valencia, which was settled in only two races between two boats.

"It was like having a World Series without a baseball season," he said.

Next time, he thinks, there will be a challenger series followed by a defender series. It would all lead up to the finals in about four years.